Letters | Nice fracking article

Nice fracking article

(Re: “Fracking lessons,” cover story, May 31.) I wish to commend the Boulder Weekly for publishing this truly fantastic article on fracking. I hope it gets through the thick skulls of the masses in my current hometown of Longmont.

I had my house on the market, but after one buyer backed out of a full-offer contract, and with two more with two other houses in my neighborhood backing out of contracts, I realized we need to stand our ground and make people aware of what’s coming. We are willing to stay and fight this monster at our doorsteps. Thank [BW Editor] Joel [Dyer] for taking the time and reporting the news as it needs to be done.

Gary Andreozzi/Longmont

Crying wolf

(Re: “Who’s afraid?” cover story, May 24.) Shame on Wyoming, shame on Wisconsin, shame on those “managers” who believe in killing wolves because someone’s bottom line or pet was part of the food chain. Aren’t we part of that food chain? Do the cows and pigs and chickens shoot us?

How come it is we cannot shoot the individuals who rape? How come it is we cannot shoot the pedophiles? Aren’t there too many of them causing harm to our bottom line on health care?

It’s always about someone’s pocket book and greed.

Colleen Ostlund/Boulder

For over 15 years, I daily struggled in the trenches of the battle to restore wolves as an ecological force in the Southern Rockies. During that time, I consistently fought the urge to tell ranchers to go piss up a rope, believing that it was important to take the high road, to behave in a reasonable manner, in order to win over hearts and minds. In hindsight, I wasted my time coddling them. Most ranchers, and a certain segment of hunters, steadfastly refuse to accept wolves back on the landscape. That shouldn’t be the end of the story.

Instead of using the Endangered Species Act to negotiate little fragments for wolves, we should designate wolves as an ecological treasure, to be forever protected and allowed to expand wherever there is prey. Despite assertions by my colleague Doug Smith to the contrary, there is plenty of room and prey for wolves in the Southern Rockies. Colorado still hosts the largest elk population in North America, and more than 60 percent of the Western Slope is public land. Moreover, wolves are not wilderness dependent; they live in much of alpine rural Italy and even in parts of the Gaza strip.

Humans can never replace wolves as an ecological dynamic — unless they are willing to lay down their guns, get off their ATVs and begin running through the elk herds, working to single out the weak and infirm. Marching around in camouflage, stealthily picking off any worthy elk or deer within range is not even a minor substitute for the action of a wolf pack. Let’s not pretend that it is.

Rob Edward/Louisville

Made his day

(Re: “A test for ‘Make My Day’,” Uncensored, May 31.) Excellent article by Pamela [White]. So refreshing to see this type of article espousing that there are private property rights, that we have a natural, moral and legal right to self defense in protecting our loved ones and property.

I was genuinely surprised, and relieved, that the district attorney didn’t file some kind of absurd charge against the homeowner. Hats off to the rule of law and to Boulder Weekly for publishing this article.

Heartless Institute’s Jay Lehr has been a major player in the campaign to silence media reporting about the Fukushima disaster. (Please see the links later in this article.)

Ever since I first saw Mr. Lehr (who is not even a nuclear engineer or scientist, but rather a hydraulics expert) softballing the Japan disaster on CNN and Faux News, I wondered what Heartless Institute was really all about (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/foxnuclear-experts-sound-just-j-fra, http:// blog.heartland.org/2011/03/heartlandinstitutes-jay-lehr-talks-japan-nuclearplant-crisis-with-hannity-liddy/, http://prfamerica.org/biography/Biography-Lehr-Jay.html) Thanks to you and Mr. Hightower the truth has been revealed that it is a front for the usual corporate vultures and purveyors of death, disinformation and destruction.